


Pause; Stop.

by kromi



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Borderlands: Borderlands 2, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 09:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13211160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kromi/pseuds/kromi
Summary: There were times, Mordecai likes to think, when he seriously considered to stop drinking. Some not as serious as others, most of them promised frantically in the adrenaline high haze of what looked like his immediate demise. Then that first drink after he had by some ass-pull of a miracle survived was always the sweetest, like return to normalcy.Except 'normalcy' on Pandora was always fucked up.





	Pause; Stop.

**Author's Note:**

> While slightly angsty at the premise this is seriously more of a comedy than anything else. Takes place during Borderlands 2.
> 
> Written for my friend San, who loves rarepairs as much as I do. <3

There were times, Mordecai likes to think, when he seriously considered to stop drinking. Some not as serious as others, most of them promised frantically in the adrenaline high haze of what looked like his immediate demise;  _ if I live no more drinking I swear _ , but that first drink  _ after _ he had by some ass-pull of a miracle survived was always the sweetest, like return to normalcy.

Except 'normalcy' on Pandora was always fucked up and therefore led to no further attempts to even consider stopping drinking.

Another point was when he was with Moxxi. He wanted to clean up his act, properly, this time, and attempt being in a serious relationship, for once, but before he even had the time to start there was Moxxi with her honeyed smile and 'oh  _ love, _ it's not you, it's  _ me _ ' and he had barely even managed to get a good buzz going before he found out that it was neither him nor Moxxi, but  _ Handsome fucking Jack.  _ He's pretty certain the next morning was the one he vaguely remembers waking up in some decrepit back alley in New Haven, Bloodwing nibbling at his ear in a desperate attempt to get him to do something other than lie in filth. He didn't much feel like doing anything else than lying in filth and passing out straight after and later he woke up in his own bed with a vague memory of having been carried and Bloodwing screeching and someone telling her to chill, dammit.

It had kinda sounded like Brick, but what did he know.

Then he almost decided to stop just to deal with Jack properly, but that whole ordeal was like someone chucking a gazillion wrenches into his works. First Bloodwing, then Roland and Lilith and suddenly he was supposed to be the brains behind the whole operation and he was running on rakk-ale for the third week in a row and how the fuck did he end up as the one giving out orders to an entire city filled with desperate and – in Pandora's scale – decent people?! (Technically Brick had more leadership experience, but since his leadership experience was with bandits, Mordecai was pretty sure it did not count, and also just punching their way to Jack and the Vault, while wonderfully simple as a thought, just wasn't going to work.)

He was lying on one of the couches in the Crimson Raiders HQ, pretty sure most of his blood had been replaced by pure ethanol and half-aware of the disturbing  _ quietness _ around him. It was one of those moments he wasn't immediately needed anywhere to bark out orders or dispense reassurances so he could languish in his inebriation in peace. There were no Vault Hunters coming and going (they were at Eridium Blight, the last he heard), there was no banter coming from the command center because there was no Lilith and no Roland, and Brick, thankfully, didn't talk to himself; no soft rustling of feathers or leathery wings nearby, not even sudden screams or other distressing noises from downstairs when something (pretty much anything) triggered Tannis' anxiety. No moon-blitzes: the Sanctuary and the skies were unnervingly silent.

Moments like that were the worst, because whether he wanted it or not he ended up doing introspection, realizing how fucking drunk he was in reality, how fucked up everything was, how fucking much he missed Bloodwing and Roland, and how he wished Lilith would try to contact them, but Jack was apparently keeping her in a much tighter leash than he had ever kept Angel. He kind of missed Moxxi and he missed that fucking blissful moment of  _ nothing-to-worry-about _ after they had opened the Vault and Pandora had, for a very brief but magical while, become a place that wasn't so bad.

And he thinks: what if he just stopped.

And that thought is gone as fast as it had flashed through his alcohol-muddled brain when he hears very heavy footsteps climbing upstairs and a large figure appears in the doorway, throwing an all-consuming shadow across the room.

Brick moves Mordecai's legs out of the way and sits on the other end of the couch with a rather uncharacteristic deep, booming sigh. Then he's holding out something for Mordecai. The something lets out a screech: not like Bloodwing but rather this ear-splittingly awful sound that he's heard so many times when he's shot them off the sky.

He scampers up, backing against the armrest, head spinning from the movement it wasn't expecting. "The fuck?!"

"I brought you a… thing," Brick says, holding out the baby rakk, an ugly leather-winged little thing.

"The fuck am I gonna do with a live rakk? You know the ale's made of their  _ eggs _ , right?"

Brick's face screws into a frown. "No, I thought, y'know. Bloodwing was a bird."

Mordecai stares.

Brick offers the screeching ugly thing to him. "It's a bird. Or, kind of a bird, at least."

"Bloodwing wasn't a fucking  _ rakk!" _

He can't really find it in him to even appreciate the gesture. It's so dumb: rakk are dumb and ugly aggressive carrion-eaters. Bloodwing was, well, not one of a kind, but  _ rare _ . Very rare. Smart. Beautiful. Easier to domesticate. Perfect. Goddammit he misses her.

"That'd be like I brought you a fucking  _ skag _ to replace your dead puppy!"

Brick looks contemplative for a second and then shrugs, still holding the ugly squirming thing in his hands. "I wouldn't mind a skag," he says. "It's kinda like a dog. Crazy Earl had a skag, remember?"

Mordecai just stares some more and then lets his shoulders slump as he pinches the bridge of his nose. Or attempts to. He pokes himself in the goggles at first.

"Like, ugh. Goddammit, Brick, I… I don't want a rakk, okay?"

Brick shrugs again and then just promptly crushes the ugly little thing between his huge palms with a disgusting crunching wet sound. It makes Mordecai jump and tumble off the couch in the least gracious manner possible.

"What the fuck?!" he says, stunned.

Brick looks at his bloodied, rakk-parts-covered hands and then wipes them on his jeans. He shrugs again. "You didn't want it."

"You didn't need to… do  _ that _ to it! For fuck's sake, you coulda taken two steps and just, thrown it out!"

"It was a  _ rakk," _ Brick says, like of course he was gonna kill the thing if it was of no use (Mordecai can’t really find flaws in the logic), and stands up, offering his still-bloodied hand to Mordecai to help him up. He takes the offer grudgingly and, swaying a little, wipes his now-bloody hand to his pants as well.

"Fucking hell, Brick," he mumbles and then presses his hand on his forehead, grimacing.

"You okay there?"

"No, not really," Mordecai replies before he realizes that it's none of Brick's business: it's none of anyone's business, actually, and he frowns and hurries to amend: "I'm  _ fine _ , all things fucking considered."

Brick sits back down, hands behind his head and one leg folded with ankle resting on his knee, looking way too relaxed. "That bad, huh?"

"What do you even care," Mordecai huffs and turns on his uncertain heels, heading towards the command center to fetch what he fears is his last bottle of rakk-ale. He comes back to find Brick having not moved at all. He glares (not that it's in any way effective what with the goggles and all) and then just slumps down to sit next to Brick, fitting there easily despite Brick taking up most of the space.

They sit in silence for a while.

"Can I not even  _ drink _ in peace anymore?"

"Sorry," Brick says but doesn't mean it in the slightest. "You didn't ask me to leave."

Well it's not like he  _ minds _ having Brick around. They're friends. At least… sort of. They know each other. They saved Pandora together. They're… sort of trying to save Pandora yet again, together. It's just that Brick's never really put himself in his company when it's not necessary. He doesn't  _ know _ anything about Brick except that he's large, obnoxious, not quite as simple as you'd think and he likes puppy dogs and punching things. He  _ really  _ likes punching things. And Brick, despite everything, has some sort of internal code of conduct and moral compass because he disagreed so vehemently with Roland about the whole business with Shep that he was thrown out of Sanctuary. (Mordecai didn't take sides: he understood why Roland was angry, but he also understood why Brick did what he did. He never said anything because it wasn't really his place: Roland called the shots). Brick also doesn't give a shit about bandits, but ended up leading a bunch of them at Thousand Cuts anyway. Thankfully, it turned out.

And now they're in  _ this _ together. Mordecai thinks how much easier it would be if Brick was someone he could actually fully trust with some of this leadership shit, but he's pretty sure that if he gives Brick freedom to do as he wants, he just ends up pummeling his way halfway through Pandora in a pointless search of Jack, Lilith and the Key. He  _ wishes _ it were as easy as punching something, but it isn't, and so Brick isn't of much help.

Maybe he should stop.

"I'm sorry about your dog," Mordecai mutters, offering a feeble olive branch of…  _ we're-still-pals _ or something like that.

"It's okay," Brick says.

"Did you really cry?"

"Yeah."

Mordecai peers at Brick, eyes slightly narrowed. He closes one eye to stop seeing two Bricks lounging with his hands behind his neck.

"Yeah, I did," Brick confirms casually, glancing at Mordecai. Apparently the silence was telling. "Ain't nothing shameful 'bout that, if that's what you're tryin' to imply. I loved the little shit. I'm sure you understand."

Mordecai looks back at his bottle. "Yeah," he says quietly. He never really cried. Not because he didn't want to, but because he doesn't really know how. It still hurts; Roland hurts too, but he doesn't know how to get any of that pain out, aside from drinking until the pain is gone and there is just numbness. A quiet still-sober voice at the back of his mind whispers that it's just a band-aid, but he's used to ignoring that asshole voice and does so once again.

They sit in silence for a while longer. Brick stands up and cracks his knuckles and then his neck, turns back to Mordecai in the doorway.

"Hey, Mordy, sorry about the bird," he says.

"No, I… it's the thought that counts, right?" he says feebly, waving his hand. He's tired. Yeah he knows Brick meant well, but… it's a bit too early for well-meaning but ill-advised attempts to cheer him up. Way too much personal loss in a very short timespan, and he's afraid it's not going to stop in a while. Jack has Lilith, after all, and soon he might have a Vault.

Brick's gone from the doorway.

 

***

 

He's sober and it's horrible. He feels like he can't aim worth shit. He hasn't been at any battles since he lost Bloodwing and he isn't used to  _ not _ having her around, marking his targets, pulling them out to the open. Instead he has Brick there, doing the same thing, but… in a way that is thoroughly stupid. Because he just goes at it fists primed, punching loader bots into scrap, scaring Hyperion personnel out of cover just by rushing at them,  _ laughing _ , and Mordecai is scared of taking a single shot in case Brick makes an unexpected move or his aim is completely off and he ends up with one more dead friend.

"STOP THAT,  _ PENDEJO!" _ he shouts over Echo comm at Brick who sends a loader bot flying with a swing of a fist and narrowly, with dumb luck, avoids getting shot in the head. He already told him, he told him a million fucking times that punching his way through his problems isn't gonna  _ work _ this time, but there he goes, fucking hell.

"Can't stop, won't stop!" Brick shouts in answer, not even over comms, and continues on with a delighted mad laugh while Mordecai watches through his scope from the Hyperion barge they stole earlier.

Soon Mordecai's heart runs cold. The barge has no shields, there are no natural rock formations or anything to shield the barge from the incoming moonshots and it moves way too slowly to even attempt any evasive maneuvers. He knows the barge is going down, and he's going with it, and Brick, the fucking idiot, is pummeling his way through one bot after another on his way towards the barge, his mouth a serious grim line of determination.

He's shouting at Brick to fuck off and leave him, that the Vault and the Key and  _ Lilith _ are more important when the first shot connects and tears the barge in half, making Mordecai lose his footing and almost slide right into the molten inferno below. The second shot downs the other half of the barge, diving straight into the lava.

He can hear the third one coming, a low ominous whistle, and he just closes his eyes and stops.

 

***

 

When he opens his eyes, he's sitting on a rather precariously tiny ledge, his leg in a funny angle and in ridiculous pain (ow,  _ hijo de tu puta madre,  _ this is  _ also  _ why he drinks!). The molten lava below is slowly swallowing what little is left of the barge from the moon-blitz and high above he can still hear faint gunfire. Brick sits next to him, exertion all over his face and heaving deep breaths, exhausted, one arm still half-wrapped around Mordecai's waist.

It's hot like in hell.

He knew Brick pulled stupid shit, but stupid  _ heroic _ shit he did not expect, and Mordecai is way too fucking  _ sober _ to deal with it. They could've  _ both _ died! He is fine with dying, he thinks, but he is most certainly not fine with Brick dying, especially while trying to pull off some asinine Hail Mary save for  _ his  _ sake. He punches Brick on the shoulder, very inefficiently, and curses him out, realizes half-way into his insults that he's crying out weeks', maybe months’ worth of stress and frustration and helplessness and  _ loss of most things he holds dear _ , and decides not to care because Brick is a fucking idiot and Brick is  _ still here _ . Brick takes the pathetic punches without paying any attention and doesn't even seem to hear Mordecai rage as he slowly eases off and starts thoughtfully peering up towards the cliff.

"Do you even  _ hear  _ what I'm saying?!" Mordecai demands, spitting more insults at Brick, who suddenly raises a hand. The one he's had around Mordecai's waist all this time. What. He falls silent, the latter half of some word bitten off.

"I hear ya, just a sec," Brick says, peers up for a second longer and then punches Mordecai in the face.

For a blissful second his leg doesn't hurt because the entire world is pain in his face, and he doubts Brick's punch was more than a tickle, because he's seen what happens when Brick punches things with full strength and generally they don't tend to stay in one piece.

"Now say thank you," Brick says after a considerable time has passed and Mordecai has regained his sight and most of the pain has subsided and is now once again mostly in his leg. He moves his jaw around, pokes his tongue against the couple of teeth that had come loose, and wipes the dripping blood from his nose. He sniffles.

"Thanks," he mutters. And he kept saying that Brick can't just punch his way out of his problems.

"You're welcome," Brick says quite happily and points up. "We need to climb." The cliff face hardly seems like the kind you can scale easily, but Mordecai also doesn't see any other way out and if it comes to that it's probably better die trying than just sit there on that tiny ledge and die anyway.

"I can't," Mordecai says and points at his broken leg. "Don't have much strength in these noodles."

"I know, goddamn, Mordy, ya need to eat a fucking sandwich after we get outta here." Brick then wraps his arm around Mordecai's waist without asking and stands up on the precarious ledge, pulling Mordecai up with him. Right then something makes the entire cliff shake, like an earthquake, and tiny pebbles rain on them and into the suddenly violently surging lava below.

They look at each other.

"We're gonna die, aren't we?"

"Nah," Brick replies, carefree. "Get on my back."

Mordecai does. He crosses his arms tight around Brick's thick neck and slips his good leg under Brick's belt, cursing silently the broken one hanging limply against Brick's side. Brick doesn't ask him if he's ready, just assumes so when he's stopped moving, reaches for a tiny outcropping and starts the slow climb. At two different points he steps on a loose rock that plummets down, bouncing off the cliff face with sharp sounds that echo in the chasm and Brick hangs from the cliff face with just his arms and Mordecai closes his eyes and imagines what it feels like to burn alive until Brick lets out a very inappropriate booming laugh, finds easily another outcropping to stand on, and continues climbing. Every now and then another earthquake-like rumble shakes the entire cliff and Mordecai clings to Brick.

After what feels like fucking  _ forever _ Brick heaves them back over the edge of the cliff and they're back amongst the carnage they left behind: parts of bots and bodies and the barge, ruins of Hyperion building prefabs, all still and silent aside from the occasional earthquake-like rumble.

They both just crash down and lie on relatively stable ground: Brick exhausted and catching breath, and Mordecai trying to recover from something he considers a near-death experience. His leg is so busted and when Brick finally stands up, pulls Mordecai up as well and starts towards the Vault, Mordecai notices that he is limping, too, and there is a big dark blotch of obviously blood on the side of his shirt. He didn't pay any attention before, he was too preoccupied with his own stupid leg, the very fragile state of his mortality and other things like completely reassessing Brick’s status as an acceptable constant in his life.

He punches Brick in the shoulder as hard as he can and curses him out again. "With that leg? Are you fucking mad?!"

"Yeah, a little bit," Brick admits, nonplussed, and continues limping forward.

Mordecai stays where he is, stopped in time and place, until Brick turns back to him with raised eyebrows and a waiting look.

"Why would you?" Mordecai asks, suddenly very, very tired.

Brick looks at Mordecai like he just asked the stupidest question ever. "Didn't wanna die, did I?" he says. "Listen, Mordy, I know… shit's been tough, okay? But we're fine. We're gonna  _ be _ fine. You gotta stop worrying over stupid shit."

"How can you say—" he starts but gets cut off when Brick just steps to him and lifts him up into a hug he didn't know he needed. Every single distracting thought gets left behind and he realizes that it's  _ acceptance _ he's needed all along. Acceptance of losses, of small victories; of still having people who care in is life. After Bloodwing and Roland and Lilith all he's felt was crushing loneliness. Responsibility and leadership he didn't want but had to take. If he had only stopped to consider Brick's role in all of this: considered sharing the responsibility instead of taking it all on himself… the road to where they are would have probably been a lot less painful. But here is Brick, taking all that worry and sharing it.

The air around them feels like a distant thunderstorm is brewing, the hairs standing on ends on Mordecai's arms and the back of his neck, and the moment feels so brittle that it'll shatter if either of them as much as draws breath. He knows what it is, but for now giving it a name feels much too troublesome, and there are more important matters to attend to. This, can wait. No time to stop now, even if Brick against him feels like something he can truly lean on and stop to take a breather.

"Yeah, you're right," he mutters against Brick's shoulder and then taps it gently to let him know that he can now put him back down. Brick does no such thing and Mordecai's forced to share the embrace while yet another earthquake shakes their foundation.

Well it's not like he can  _ really  _ complain.

"Not to ruin the moment," Mordecai starts, a tad awkward, "but uh, shouldn't we, y'know, Jack? The Vault?"

"Yeah," Brick says after a while and slowly lets Mordecai back down on his feet. "Can you walk with that shit leg?"

"Can  _ you?" _

Brick shrugs.

Mordecai steps to him, takes his huge arm and drapes it over his shoulder and wraps his arm around Brick's waist. They're in this together, dammit. "Ok, let's go, big guy."

It's absolutely of no help whatsoever, but Brick laughs, booming and cheerful, and flings his arm over Mordecai's shoulder, pretty much just taking his weight so he doesn't actually have to use the quite useless leg: Brick’s own injury doesn't seem as bad although he still moves slowly and with a limp.

"Idiot," Mordecai mutters fondly.

 

***

 

It's only in the back of the bandit technical on their way back closer to Sanctuary that Brick leans closer and presses his forehead against Mordecai's and the thunderstorm is back. Brick thumbs carefully the slowly forming bruise on Mordecai's face, his handiwork, and then kisses him, just as gentle and careful. It's not like Mordecai didn't see it coming, he was sort of expecting it to happen sooner, like, back in the Hero's Pass after climbing up from their certain deaths sooner, and he lazily raises his arm and traces his fingers along Brick's neck. It feels right, like an accomplishment of some kind, a lightbulb flickering into life at the back of his mind.

Now is a good time to stop.

"Ugh,  _ finally, _ " says Lilith from behind the wheel while Claptrap stares openly over the backrest of the seat, the big mechanical eye-light unblinking.

"Gaaay," the robot concludes and turns away.


End file.
